On this date 200 years ago General John Coffee and 1,000 Tennessee troops surrounded the Muscogee/Creek village of Tallushatchee and began a systematic slaughter of the inhabitants. Andrew Jackson invaded Creek Country with 2,500 Tennessee Militia to retaliate for a massacre that took place the previous August at Fort Mims. Mims was a stockade located on the Alabama River north of Mobile. At Fort Mims militant Creeks known as Red Sticks attacked the Fort in retaliation for an even earlier battle that took place at Burnt Corn. The Red Sticks were a militant faction of the Creek nation who sought a more traditional Native American way of life. The Red Stick movement was a reaction to loss of Creek tradition and land brought on by the American encroachment into Creek Country. A Creek civil war was simmering that pitted those Creeks friendly to Americans against those Creeks who were not, the Red Sticks. That Civil War spilled over into the larger War of 1812 at Fort Mims where the Red Sticks sought vengeance against the Metis or mixed-blood Creeks who were siding with the Americans. Historians estimate that perhaps 300 people were killed inside Mims. At Tallushatchee Andrew Jackson reported killing 200 Creek men. An untold number of woman and children were also shot or burned to death inside their homes. Davey Crockett, a soldier in Coffee’s company, reported seeing a 12-year old boy too injured to walk crawling from a burning house, “the grease stewing out of him.” But the child begged no quarter Crockett recalled. “We shot 'em like dogs,” Crockett said of the Creek men, women and children. Andrew Jackson, writing to Tennessee Gov. Willie Blount after the battle stated, “We have retaliated for the destruction of Fort Mimms."

Jay is doing a book report on Indians of the nation. Thanks for the information. I loved reading it. Im passing it on to his Social Studies teacher.

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Ricky Meadows

10/13/2014 10:42:21 am

Andrew Jackson's image should be stricken from the $20.00 bill and he should be posthumously deemed guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity , he was just as guilty of genocide as modern day criminals Stalin, Hitler and Milosevic. He deliberately disobeyed a Supreme court ruling uprooted and systematically removed Native American peoples from their homes trying to ethnically cleanse a territory of its indigenous peoples.

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Robert Smith

2/11/2015 05:41:58 am

Ricky, you are obviously ignorant of what was really happening at that time. While it is true that the so-called "Red Sticks" were following Creek traditions, the fact was that the British had them under their wing. They supported them with weapons and goods. They also used propaganda to make the Red Sticks believe that the "white colonists" were taking over. In reality, if the British had taken over the US, most Native Americans would had either been killed or taken for slavery. Jackson lost a lot during the Revolutionary war. He also saw what the British could do during the War of 1812. He knew the British were rallying the Native Americans against the US. Jackson didn't want to see that again, so...rather than decide the good from the bad Indians, he move all of them to OK. While you may see this as bad now, Jackson believe it was in defense of the US. Jackson should be considered a hero for everything he did before and while he was our President.

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peter

5/10/2015 03:25:21 pm

I like your thinking. The ways and means to the end are always complicated. Jackson was a tough person but had the heart of the US in his sole..

Travis Brown

12/11/2015 09:07:19 pm

This was not an invasion. The armies of Tennessee, Georgia and the Mississippi Territory were allied with the friendly Creeks under the principle chief Big Warrior, Choctaw and the Cherokee against the fanatical war party known as the Redsticks. The friendly Creeks at Talladega sent runners to Jackson requesting assistance because of the large numbers of Redstick warriors gathering in their vicinity.
Cherokee Chief Path Killer notified Jackson that Redstick warriors from nine war towns had gathered at Tallushatchee. This confirms the rumors and evidence that the Redsticks were massing their forces to strike at Jackson's Army, the Cherokee, Huntsville or even the settlements of Tennessee. One reason that Tennessee responded so quickly was to defend her southern frontier and prevent a Muskogee invasion as had happened throughout the Revolution and the Cherokee Wars of the 1790s. Only the year before, July 1812, a Redstick War Party attacked and massacred families at their homes along the Duck River.
Modern historians and revisionists treat these opposing armies, Redstick Creek and Coffee's Tennesseans as if they had the same cultural values, as if both were to abide by Western "rules of war".

"Coffee commented that "the enemy fought with savage fury, and met death with all its horrors, without shrinking or complaining: no one asked to be spared, but fought as long as they could stand or sit." One of the Tennessee soldiers, the legendary David Crockett, simply said: "We shot them like dogs."

Those who judge these men and frankly all our founding fathers ( which seems to be the "In" thing these days with academia) with words like racism, genocide and atrocity seem to conveniently discount or overlook the actions of men like one of the Tennessee privates killed in this battle (trying to offer quarter) and the Redsticks themselves who refused surrender and took refuge amongst their women and children in the height of battle.

Coffee stated that every officer and man had great regret over the women and children killed in this battle.
Incidentally the Tennessee private killed was shot dead with an arrow by a woman from the porch of a cabin he was approaching, trying to gain their surrender.

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Darby Weaver

1/13/2016 11:46:17 am

Why did Jackson hang Osceola's Lawyers?

Ambrister and Arbuthnot?

Review the case and the objections...

Why did Jackson duel and kill some of the objectors to those killings?

Why does Coffee sound like Lauderdale to me....

Why does Selocta get credit for rallying the troops and who is John Reed - goes by the title of Major...

And what happened at Talladega and Chinnabee's Fort?

Why was Big Warrior reported to be under fire and shot earlier about the same time at the Ft. Mims incident?

Gotta read some more and look things up...

How did all the Creek Wars chiefs die - one by one - look them up and when...

It gets better all the time.

Darby Weaver

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Darby Weaver

1/13/2016 11:41:20 am

Why does the Life of Davy Crockett appear to say that he is going down the West side of the State where these events occur versus the East side of the State of Alabama?

And why so much activity in the Tensaw, Mobile, and McIntosh areas - traditional Natchez Territory?

I have literally thousands of discrepancies...

The Yazoo Land Scam had a lot of impacts on American History.

All the talk of slaves - My newspapers in my possession show that Spain in 1739 abolished slavery in the Florida, Louisiana, Georgia and even Carolinas. So how is it than Indians residing in Spanish lands would even own slaves most of the time.

Also note many slaves were actually Indians - even Jackson's slave would pass for white or appear "yellow" and this is published on newspapers too when one person went missing.

The list goes on but quite frankly since I started my research:

1. I don't believe events in American History starting with events just prior to the French and Indian War.

2. I tend to believe the American Revolution was a revolution over the Proclamation of 1763 and the restriction of stealing Indian lands - which happens to be the bulk of American History for over 100 years afterwards per the American State Papers themselves.

3. The Civil War was about slaves and states rights but which SLAVES and which States Rights - again taking Indian Land and using Indians for Slaves or better yet trading for Black Slaves in the Indies... Import/Expert Business - disorient everyone.

Now it would not be so fanciful if I had not acquired the letters to the effect that mentions this state of confused history.

Call the "THEORY" and the "PRACTICE"... by the Secretary of War to one Silas Dinsmore.

It's EVIL and it happened and sadly most of the events that happened in one state appear now to have occurred all over the south and those historic towns and sites are "moved on paper and maps" and are now being removed piece by piece.

I had to find an old Rail Road map to prove where Noxubee was and now it is in Mississippi... go figure.

Macon Alabama is now gone but Grove Hill is its replacement - and Macon Georgia is there and so is Macon Mississippi.

Let's not even talk about Natchez, Walnut Hills, and Loftus Heights.

It's true.

They recently moved one of our cemeteries at old St. Stephens which they renamed to Our Lady of Sorrows and forgot that the St. Stephens Road went to that St. Stephens during historic times and not the one they claim which came later to be the capital of the territory later and then died.

Washington was nearby and it is gone but in 1855 Washington in Mississippi was mentioned to be established in the American State Papers.

But wasn't that Washington important prior to 1855 - the one by Natchez under the hill?

I get lost but the American State Papers help with the DECEPTION of AMERICAN HISTORY and when they fail, then comes the OLD Spanish and French records.

Amazing huh?

American History is a SCAM to cover for LAND FRAUD and GENOCIDE.

Darby Weaver

comblues at yahoo dot com - Enjoy history - it may yet change again - I've bought old newspapers and 1st edition book to make sure what I'm reading is even more authentic.

However, I have my concerns.

By the way - Ref: Secretary of War Letters to Andrew Jackson back in 1828 and ask yourself - what was Jackson really doing in the so-called Creek War.

Reference: Oliver and Andrew McGillivray and if Oliver sounds like Tecumseh... maybe something is wrong.

Reference: Letter from James Cornells after he scalped someone for the British to Seagrove and maybe it sounds like what "Little Warrior or whoever was supposed to have done in 1813 on the Ohio" and the list goes...

It's strange but true.

Look it up.

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Michael E. Palmer is a writer and photographer based in Alabama. He can be reached at mikepalmer2010@gmail.com